Creating awareness through public campaigns does matter a lot, but let's be honest: enforcement of rules matters as well. Without the latter, no effective initiative will bring the desired results
This piece is about tackling the worrisome trend of smoking among Nepali youths and ensuring that Metropolitan governments can have an important role to play.
How can they do so? By harnessing the potential of local police forces under their authority.
Over the last year I have noticed the zeal and dedication of the members of the local police corps, security personnel, recruited by metropolitan governments to help secure safer and, at the same time, more orderly and less messy urban areas. In particular I am referring to the Metro Police Force under the administration of the government of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC).
Many of its functions will be clear only when there will be change in the current provisions related to policing in a federal nation, a reform stuck in a legislative limbo due to its sensitivity that has been causing strong obstructionism from some quarters.
Recently, there was news that the Metropolitan Police in Kathmandu had stepped up vehicle emission control. This is an important action especially if the security personnel under the authority of Mayor Balendra Shah can target old buses under the influence of powerful syndicates.
But taking care of illicit smoking would confer the Kathmandu Metropolitan Police another layer of credibility and legitimacy. I am talking about illicit smoking because we all know that there are clear rules in place, but, unfortunately, we also know very well how such provisions are systematically ignored. For example, single cigarettes should not be sold in any way. Instead, the opposite rules. You can easily buy a single cigarette in any local restaurant and in most of the small grocery shops that are literally everywhere in the Kathmandu Valley. Then, another fact we got accustomed to is that folks can easily smoke undisturbed in the vast majority of eateries, not only the cheapest ones.
I always think about why young people smoke. I have asked some of them informally out of sheer curiosity. Some have replied that it is because of their stressed lives and with that, also the frustrations that societal pressure puts on them. Others simply could not answer in any coherent way. These are young people who smoke simply because their peers are doing it. I think also a good number of these young citizens do smoke simply because they love to show off, because they feel important.
Many newspapers, including The Himalayan Times, have highlighted the 2019 STEPS survey, according to which 28.9 per cent of Nepalese adults (aged 15–69) use tobacco products, with 17.1 per cent of the total population smoking – 22 per cent of men and 6 per cent of women. The number must be much higher now.
There have been some recent positive developments like the "Smokers Are Not Selfish" campaign, organised by the Dr Om Foundation. Recently, I have also read some good opinion pieces about ways to curb smoking among youths. I do believe that awareness campaigns against smoking are useful, and they should play a big role especially if schools are also included.
For example, the KMC government could, to start with, work with students from the public, community-run schools under its administration. But we need a comprehensive, long-term approach.
That's why Mayor Shah could envision a "Mission: Stop Smoking" as one of its top policy priorities, a long-term initiative that would also involve, mandatorily, private schools within the boundaries of the administration. Such a mission must go beyond the usual awareness programmes, and it could work in partnership and in coordination with civil society initiatives like the ones being started by Dr. Om Foundation.
We need resources and data, and with them, we need to carry out a holistic effort by also carrying out health and sociological studies. But the mission needs "muscles". A successful initiative can only succeed if current rules and regulations are enforced.
That's why the Kathmandu Metropolitan Police should show its capacity to first dissuade and then punish all the violators, not only from the perspective of the demand side but also the suppliers, starting from restaurants and shops. Mayor Shah has been bold in the past by prohibiting in 2023 the sale of smoking products throughout Kathmandu. The previous year, his administration had announced a restriction on smoking and tobacco chewing in public places. These efforts got stalled and blocked as vested interests, especially the cigarette manufacturing companies, opposed them, including by going to court.
From here, it is important to shift tactics, while the overall strategy being implemented through "Mission: Stop Smoking" remains unchanged: drastically reduce the number of smokers in the capital of Nepal. New tactics would require the law enforcement agency under the KMC government to take the lead in enforcing the existing rules.
With the same vigor that the Kathmandu Metropolitan Police freed the sidewalks of street vendors, an initiative that I never fully understood, the same agents can help establish a culture of accountability in respecting all the rules related to how to sell cigarettes and smoke them. In 2016, the Metropolitan Police Range also tried to enforce these provisions, but it failed, as also the previous Mayor of Kathmandu, Bidya Sundar Shakya.
People shouldn't have to deal with buying single cigarettes in local shops or suffer the harmful and annoying effects of passive smoking. It's also not inevitable for young people to waste their money on a vice that is harmful and plainly silly.
Mayor Shah can take action by preparing a wide-ranging plan based on implementing "Mission: Stop Smoking". Creating awareness through public campaigns does matter a lot, but let's be honest: enforcement of rules matters as well. Without the latter, no effective initiative will bring the desired results no matter the pushbacks that might generate.
